Rivenhall & Silver End Parish Magazine
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Rivenhall & Silver End Parish Magazine August 2013 40p Our Services this Month 4h August 2013 10th Sunday after Trinity 9.30 am St. Francis Holy Communion Rev. Paul Watkin 11.00 am St. Mary’s All Age Worship Rev. Paul Watkin 11th August 2013 11th Sunday after Trinity 9.30 am St Francis Morning Prayer Rev. TBA 11.00 am St Mary’s Holy Communion Rev. Val Drury 18th August 2013 12th Sunday after Trinity 9.30 am St. Francis Morning Prayer Lay Led 11.00 am Matins W. Orley 25th August 2013 13th Sunday after Trinity 9.30 am St. Francis Holy Communion Rev. Simon Garwood 11.00 am St. Mary’s Holy Communion Rev. Simon Garwood Church Contacts Priest-in-Charge Rev. Paul Watkin 01376 583930 [email protected] Churchwarden Oliver Clarke 01376 514825 Churchwarden Peter Hope 01376 502605 Rivenhall Contact Carole McCarthy 01376 512781 Silver End Contact Ruth Aitken 01376 583846 Please hand articles for the magazine to Peter Hope or email to [email protected] by 18th of the month. Rivenhall Website www.stmarysrivenhall.co.uk St Francis Silver End Website www.st-francis.org.uk/ Rivenhall School www.rivenhallprimary.co.uk/ CAR TREASURE HUNT—In Aid of St Mary’s Building and Appeals Sunday 11th August 2.00 p.m For More Information Contact: Martin Andrews 07952 708220 Church Opening For all those who would like to visit the church or show Friends round: St Mary’s Church Rivenhall is open from 2.30 to 4.30 p.m every Sunday from 5th May to 6th October We (The editorial team) reserve the right to edit (i.e. cut, précis, alter, correct grammar or spelling) any item published and our decision is final Monthly musings from your parish priest. On Sunday the 21st of last month, both St Francis and St Mary's churches welcomed The Reverend Canon Jenny Tomlinson as our guest preacher. A large part of her work in this area of our diocese, sees Jenny with a special role as advisor in Mission and Ministry; part of which includes working with parishes in thinking about stewardship and Christian giving. This is a subject for each of us to prayerfully consider as part of our commitment to Christ's work in the world, and to assure the continued presence of our churches in our communities – not only for today but for future generations to come. As the saying goes: 'The future is in our hands'. Having heard her preach I felt that what she said was so important that I wanted to share it with you all. If you were there on that day, this provides an opportunity to read through what she said in her sermon. Or otherwise the chance to read (what I hope you'll find) her inspiring message for the first time. The readings on which her sermon was based were a passage from St Paul's 2nd letter to the early church in Corinth (2 Corinthians 9:6-11), along with the gospel appointed for the day: Luke 10:38-42. The latter being the story of Mary (sister of Lazarus and Martha – all friends of Jesus) sitting and listening to Jesus whilst Martha was busy with domestic chores. It would be good to look these passages up in your Bible and read the below with them in mind. (I've omitted reproducing their full texts here due to the space it would take up.) Plus alongside this you'll also find a folded document in your magazine this month in connection to the below too. I hope you'll also find it useful and interesting and I would commend it to all readers to spend some time considering. And I would also be pleased to hear back from you on the questionnaire if you'd like to fill it in – It would be wonderful to know more about what you would like to see from your churches, and how we can continue to serve the communities of Rivenhall and Silver End. So without further a-do, I commend to you the below sermon from Jenny: Jesus, his 12 disciples, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. A total of 16 people for supper, and the person who should be helping you cook is sitting listening to someone talk! No wonder Martha gets irritated – distracted, Jesus calls it. We use that word when we’re drawn away from what we should be doing by something else – for teenagers at least it always seems to be Facebook. At work it might be an interesting piece of news as we’re on our way to the photocopier; in the last few days my husband starts to make a cup of tea and gets distracted by the Tour de France or the cricket score… The unusual angle here is that Jesus implies that far from Mary being distracted from what she should be doing by Jesus’ teaching, it’s Martha who is distracted and worried! Now I’m sure I’m not the only one to find this story challenging – but Jesus is saying something very important about priorities. In an age when women weren’t expected to learn from a rabbi, Mary chooses to listen to Jesus, and he praises her choice of what 1 really matters. Like Mary and Martha we all have to make choices about what we do, and to decide what is important. That’s true of every aspect of our Christian lives: How we spend our time, what work we do, what areas of church life we get involved with, and how we use our money. A couple of years ago Victoria Darbishire on Radio 5 live asked listeners to text in and say what they didn’t want to give up in the recession. If you’re having to cut back, she said, what is it that you want to hang on to, what really matters? Some people might buy cheaper food, or go less to the gym, in order still to be able to afford a drink on a Friday night or the occasional curry. The reality of how we spend our time and money often reveals what is important to us. Where does God feature in that? Mary found Jesus so compelling, so interesting that she sat at his feet and listened. This passage in Luke’s gospel follows the story of the Good Samaritan, and I wonder if Jesus was telling stories like that one, illustrating how God’s people were to behave, giving a totally different perspective on life, offering teaching that was fresh and new, where love was the priority, the guiding principle. Mary gives us a picture of discipleship; you might say that’s it’s a picture of prayer. If Martha was anything like me, she will have been banging and clattering around for quite a few minutes before she burst in and asked Jesus to tell Mary to help her. But Mary doesn’t get distracted by what else is going on, and manages to stay focused on Jesus. That’s one of the marks of discipleship – the commitment that keeps our attention where it should be. Jesus points out to Martha that ‘Mary has chosen the better part’. Jesus doesn’t oblige or compel us to do anything, but invites and encourages us. That’s true of our giving. Paul writes to the Corinthians that ‘God loves a cheerful giver’. Let’s not think of our giving to God as being like income tax or a subscription to a group – it’s our free, loving, grateful response to the God who loves us beyond anything we can imagine and has given everything to us in Christ. You see the love of a couple on their wedding day, or the devoted gaze of new parents at their tiny baby, and you can see the beauty of it, the romance. But real love translates into getting up in the night when the baby cries, going to the shop in the rain because you’ve run out of milk, putting the bins out and getting the laundry done, It doesn’t sound quite so beautiful or romantic but it’s real love. In the same way, being committed to Christ translates into giving what we can give in order for his Kingdom to grow, for his Church to be effective. Of course that won’t just be money. God invites us to worship, to 2 pray, to give our time and energy. But in the same way that money is necessary in the rest of our life, so it is in the church. Paul tells the Corinthians that they are to give ‘as you have made up your mind’. In other words, Christian giving is to be deliberate, planned, carefully thought through, rather than what we happen to have in our purse or pocket on a Sunday morning. We need to sit down and work out, prayerfully before God, what it’s right for us to give. That is something very personal and so it’s kept highly confidential. We’re accountable to God for our giving and no-one else. If we are already giving regularly, then we review the amount we give. Does it really reflect what we can manage? What does it say about the importance of God in our lives? Maybe we think that what we can offer isn’t worth giving, but remember how greatly Jesus valued the two small coins that the widow put in, because it was all she had (Luke 21:1-4).